The Puppy and His Boy

There was once a small puppy and a young boy who were inseparable. They did everything together. They went swimming, played at the park and even went down the slide together. The boy and his dog spent all the time they could together. One day the dog and his family took a trip to a park that had a suspension bridge that they had to cross. The little boy went across first and tried to get the puppy to follow, but the puppy was to scared. To the suprise of the boy's parents, he returned and did something that was very unussual. The little boy layed down on his belly and began to encourage the puppy to come across the bridge. To everyone's suprise the little puppy slowly started to cross the bridge. When they reach the other side, the little boy wrapped his arms around the puppy, kissed him and said, great job buddy! After that, the puppy followed that little boy anywhere and everywhere.

This story is a great picture of how God walks us through hard times in our lives. He gets down in the dirt with us and simply keeps encouraging us to keep going forward through what ever our scary times might be. When we get to the other side of the bridge, He gives us a great big hug and lets us know that He is proud. In turn, we start to follow Him anywhere and everywhere because we know that He loves us enough to get down in the dirt and help us across the unstable bridges in our lives.

First Grade Flash Back

I have come up with a new name for those of us who struggle with sin in our lives. Before I go any further I need to explain what sin really is. Sin is an archery term for "missing the target." Now in the west we us it in a much different context. Christians, for example, talk about sin as being something that you have done to ensue God's angry. The bible defines sin as lying, cheating, braking the law, murder, lust, ect.
However, this whole list of sins brings me directly to the new name that I have come up with to explain the sin disposition that we all have. "Stupid sinner face"! I know it sound a little childish, however, if you can look back to your grade school years, you will find that it was these kind of names that hurt us the most as small children.
The other day my wife and I were making dinner together (which doesn't happen nearly enough) and as we were cooking I blurted out "stupid face", to which she responded "dodo- head". As we continued to call each other these names, I realize that if I was a little kid, I would have been in tears by now. Can you remember those days? The days when you would come home from school, sobbing because someone called you a "bad breath, poo-poo face".
That is my intention with this knew name for sin. To bring reality back into life when it seems like I have totally missed the target. To bring myself back to a place of thinking that says, "your not all that, you need something more, you can't live this life on your own." And that is our thought pattern right? That we can live this life on our own? That we no longer need God, we can handle it?
To many times have I tried and failed to live this life on my own. To many time have I tried to dig up my old self from the grave. To often we try to play God and control the out comes of life, but when we try to make our own lives work, the only thing we get out of it is the realization that we're just a bunch of "stupid sinner faces" who need a real God to take away our sins.